A week ago, an article in the
Wall Street Journal caught my eye- a mother in China discovered her daughter had autism. There were only 2 schools in all of China for autistic children. Ma Chen opened an additional school, and is currently hoping to buy a piece of farm land for $10,000, so that the children will have a place to go and something to do after they finish school.
China is a place where disabilities are often seen as a sign of being a bad parent, even though we know that many of them are genetic disorders.
The New England Journal of Medicine reports that there is at least one form of autism caused by a spontaneous "micro deletions and "micro replications" of specific genes.
You can read more about it here.
I want to help. By coincidence, one of my childhood friends is the Senior Cultural Attache for the US Department of Agriculture in Beijing, China, so it seemed easy enough to email him and ask if there was any way to verify the story. If we could, I want to try to raise enough money, $10,000 US, to help Ma Chen purchase this farm as a "Mothers to Mothers" way of making the World better for our children.
I asked my friend if there was a way to get the money directly to Ma Chen, so it did not go through other agencies and get lost in the shuffle. My friend continues to pursue the matter through diplomatic channels as we speak.
In addition, Ian Johnson from the Wall Street Journal has been in contact with their office in Shanghi, and can help us arrange a Western Union transfer directly to Ma Chen and her organization to help her with her school and the purchase of this farm for the children.
I think it is currently "safe" to try to raise funds to help Ma Chen and her school and have confidence we can get the money directly to her.
As a mom of a child with a learning disability, I know how painful this can be, and how much worry it causes. It's even harder for the parents I know who have autistic children, where they don't know whether their child will be able to hold a job or make a living when they grow up, or what will happen to them after the parents pass away.
We are so lucky in this Country to have services at all for autistic children- imagine living in a Country of 1.3 Billion people, where only two state-run schools exist to serve all of the people with autism, in a culture where the very existance of autism has only recently been recognized as a disability. US rates of Autism are estimated to be one in every 166 births; if we assume a conservative figure of one in 500 births for China, that still means over 2.6 million people in China may have an autism spectrum disorder.
Our goal is to raise $10,000 for Ma Chen, to help her purchase the farm, so these children have a place to go- a sheltered work environment, where people understand them, and a place where they can be productive.
Thank you for your interest and support, and we'll keep you posted to our progress as this story continues.
Whitney Hoffman
The LD Podcast
If you have any questions, please contact me directly at ldpodcast@gmail.com.
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